14. Something More

I friend told me she never thought she’d still be single now as she approaches middle age. She finds herself grappling with loneliness and questions of the future—questions and fears she never expected to have. “I know this is God’s will for me…but it doesn’t make it any easier,” she admitted.

What would make it easier, I wonder? What would ease the questions and soothe the loneliness she feels?

Suppose God would promise marriage to all young women who long for Him, search out His purposes, and live every moment with passion. Would those brides ever cry lonely tears again?

They tell me reality such as tears and misunderstandings come before the honeymoon is over. You and I have cried and wrestled with the fear of never being chosen, never being married. But why do brides cry?

If weddings were the complete purpose of life and the perfect fulfillment of all our wishes, all wives should be glowing constantly. Marriage counselors would have no waiting lists and Christian bookstores’ “marriage” sections would shrink to hold only books celebrating marriage. Even couples who never see a marriage counselor, and are still deeply in love after sixty years together find that marriage doesn’t fill their deepest longings. Why? Because there’s something more.

Purpose and passion make you more beautiful, more whole, more like the lady God had in mind when He made you. But He made you for even more than that. Living with purpose and passion so as to become a better wife would be beneficial. But what if that never happens? And if you do marry, what happens when your husband dies? How tragic to have your life’s purpose disappear.

My friend Crystal said it well:

It has to be false that a person who felt really unfulfilled as a single will find marriage to be “everything they hoped it to be.” So maybe it’s not so much about finding fulfillment as a single, but about learning to embrace with passion whatever life brings to you. Think about being married and ending up living far from home and family—that could be really tough, not to have grandmas and aunts and uncles close by to see your children growing up.
Or think about being married and then not able to have children—will that ruin your joy?
Or what about when your husband has a lot of responsibilities that take a lot of sacrifice on your part? Will you live abundantly then?
Or maybe you’ll have a child die, or maybe you’ll be widowed. Perhaps I’m getting morbid, but how can you not think of the possibility? It happens to people! We have to believe the fact that wherever you are, it’s real life, and it won’t be all cream and strawberries.

There’s more to life than being found by a charming prince, choosing your wedding colors, and decorating your first house. It is hard for us wanna-be’s to believe this, but it is true. Otherwise,

Recently

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

—

This letter was written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo to his friend, Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.